And How Seeing Them Changes Everything

You know that feeling when you’re leading through a high-stakes moment, like a big presentation, a difficult conversation, a critical decision, and there’s this whole internal drama happening that nobody else can see? Your chest is tight, your inner critic is running commentary, and you’re working twice as hard to look calm on the outside as you are to actually do the work itself?

For the longest time, I thought this was just “what leadership felt like.” I figured the anxiety, second-guessing, and exhausting internal narrative came with the territory. But I’ve learned that it doesn’t have to.

What You Can’t See Is Controlling You

I’ve been diving deep into adult development theory lately (because I’m the kind of person who reads about psychological frameworks for fun), and I stumbled onto something called Subject-Object Theory. The concept is brilliantly simple and so profound.

When you are subject to something, you can’t see it and yet it controls you. It’s like wearing glasses you’ve forgotten you have on; they shape everything you see, but you don’t notice them at all.

When something is object to you, you can see it, name it, examine it. Now you’ve taken the glasses off and can hold them in your hand, examining how they’ve been filtering your view. And once you can see what is object to you, you can do something about it.

Bill Abbate, writing about this concept in his article, Harnessing Subject-Object Theory for Growth, puts it perfectly: “[…] when you are subject to something, you are unaware of it. It’s such an integral part of you that it operates beneath your consciousness. However, when something becomes object, you can observe, think about, and examine it. This ability to reflect allows you to understand it more objectively. You can stand back, question, and take deliberate action.”

Anxiety and Leadership: A Complicated Relationship

Many leaders are subject to their anxiety. It’s not “I am experiencing anxiety.” It’s “I AM anxiety.” The feeling and the self are fused together; inseparable.

But once you learn about Subject-Object Theory, something can shift. You start noticing when anxiety shows up. You can name it: “Oh, hello anxiety. You’re here because I care about this outcome and I’m worried about letting people down.”

This might sound like a small shift, but it’s massive. Because now anxiety doesn’t run the show anymore. You do.

You still feel it, but now when it shows up, you can acknowledge it, listen to it and understand what it’s telling you, and then decide what to do. Sometimes you thank it for the information and tell it to sit in the back seat. Sometimes you dig deeper to understand what you’re actually worried about.

The anxiety hasn’t disappeared. But you’re no longer subject to it. It’s become object to you.

The ‘Forms of Mind Map’

Jennifer Garvey Berger’s work on “forms of mind” gives us a map for understanding how we make sense of our world as leaders. In her book Changing on the Job and her broader developmental framework, she describes how adults can see the world through fundamentally different lenses.

Most of us operate from what she calls a socialized mind, where we’re embedded in the perspectives of others; shaped by external expectations. We become our organization’s values, our profession’s norms, our team’s expectations. This isn’t bad, but it can be limiting.

With a more developed self-authored mind, we develop our own internal compass. We can take in other perspectives while maintaining our own. We’re no longer torn apart when different authorities disagree because we’ve developed our own authority.

This is where it gets really interesting: the journey from socialized to self-authored mind requires exactly the kind of subject-object moves I’ve been talking about.

When we are embedded in anxiety; shaped by it; controlled by it, that is subject. And when we can step back and see it, name it, work with it, that is object. That shift is what allows us to author our own experience rather than being authored by our circumstances (socialized to self-authored mind).

Your Turn

Here’s my challenge to you: What’s one thing you’re subject to right now as a leader?

Maybe it’s anxiety, like we’ve been discussing. Maybe it’s the need to have all the answers. Maybe it’s the voice that tells you you’re not ready, not experienced enough, not whatever enough.

You can’t change what you can’t see. So look for it until you see it. Then, once you make it object instead of subject, that’s when the real leadership development begins.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about how understanding your form of mind can transform not just how you lead yourself, but how you lead others. Because your team members are probably operating from different forms of mind than you are, and that changes everything. Nobody said being human is easy!

Until then, start noticing what invisible lenses are shaping your view.

This blog series is inspired by the work of Jennifer Garvey Berger on adult development and forms of mind, and Bill Abbate’s writing on Subject-Object Theory.